States, and the determination of the boundaries of the country.  I believe that till it was done by the Federal Government, a uniform system of mathematical survey had never in any country been applied to an extensive territory.  Large grants and sales of public land took place before the Revolution, and in the interval between the peace and the adoption of the Constitution; but the limits of these grants and sales were ascertained by sensible objects, by trees, streams, rocks, hills, and by reference to adjacent portions of territory, previously surveyed.  The uncertainty of boundaries thus defined, was a never-failing source of litigation.  Large tracts of land in the Western country, granted by Virginia under this old system of special and local survey, were covered with conflicting claims; and the controversies to which they gave rise formed no small part of the business of the Federal Court after its organization.  But the adoption of the present land-system brought order out of chaos.  The entire public domain is now scientifically surveyed before it is offered for sale; it is laid off into ranges, townships, sections, and smaller divisions, with unerring accuracy, resting on the foundation of base and meridian lines; and I have been informed that under this system, scarce a case of contested location and boundary has ever presented itself in court.  The General Land Office contains maps and plans, in which every quarter-section of the public land is laid down with mathematical precision.  The superficies of half a continent is thus transferred in miniature to the bureaus of Washington; while the local Land Offices contain transcripts of these plans, copies of which are furnished to the individual purchaser.  When we consider the tide of population annually flowing into the public domain, and the immense importance of its efficient and economical administration, the utility of this application of Astronomy will be duly estimated.

[Footnote A:  Humboldt, Histotre de la Geographie, &c., Tom. 1, page 71.]

I will here venture to repeat an anecdote, which I heard lately from a son of the late Hon. Timothy Pickering.  Mr. Octavius Pickering, on behalf of his father, had applied to Mr. David Putnam of Marietta, to act as his legal adviser, with respect to certain land claims in the Virginia Military district, in the State of Ohio.  Mr. Putnam declined the agency.  He had had much to do with business of that kind, and found it beset with endless litigation.  “I have never,” he added, “succeeded but in a single case, and that was a location and survey made by General Washington before the Revolution; and I am not acquainted with any surveys, except those made by him, but what have been litigated.”

At this moment, a most important survey of the coast of the United States is in progress, an operation of the utmost consequence, in reference to the commerce, navigation, and hydrography of the country.  The entire work, I need scarce say, is one of practical astronomy.  The scientific establishment which we this day inaugurate is looked to for important cooperation in this great undertaking, and will no doubt contribute efficiently to its prosecution.